SIGN UP FOR BREAKING NEWS

Central Park becomes a field hospital for New York, where coronavirus deaths have topped 1,000

Share

Shares

Copy Link

{copyShortcut} to copy
Link copied!

Updated: 11:03 AM CDT Mar 30, 2020

Hide TranscriptShow Transcript

President Trump pushing back his hopes to end the virtual national shutdown by Easter. We will be extending our guidelines toe April 30th to slow the spread. Trump's move reportedly coming after Dr Anthony Fauci and Dr Deborah Burkes, members of the Corona Virus Task Force, presented models that showed, Ah, 100,000 or more people in the U. S. Could die from the disease. We're gonna have millions of cases. What we do know is that we got a serious problem in New York. We have a serious problem in New Orleans and we're gonna be developing serious problems in other areas. As state leaders watch cases spike in New York, they're intensifying their please with the White House to streamline the distribution of critical supplies. We have ah desperate need for the testing kids. My role is to get every person, personal protection equipment, every piece I can get into the state of Michigan. We need some assistance and we're gonna need thousands of ventilators. We obviously have a spread that is growing faster than we would like to see. We think the first, the real issue is gonna be ventilators, New York City's mayor warning. It's not just ventilators his hospitals will need personnel is becoming more more the issue we need to get them. Relief on the fields of Central Park and Emergency Hospital is under construction, adding to a growing number of satellite locations in the city to take care of the sick. The CDC also advising New York, New Jersey and Connecticut residents over the weekend to refrain from non essential travel for 14 days and states like Rhode Island in Florida, establishing driver checkpoints, ordering two weeks self quarantines for those entering from some of the hardest hit areas. This is just a way to make sure that we're keeping people safe, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo says he'll need all hands on deck to fight the Corona virus. Yes, New York is the epicenter, and these are different times and many people are frightened. But look, uh, this is New York, and we are going to make it through this

Advertisement

Central Park becomes a field hospital for New York, where coronavirus deaths have topped 1,000

A grassy meadow in New York's Central Park normally occupied by sunbathers and picnickers is now an emergency field hospital as officials scramble to support a hospital system getting overwhelmed by coronavirus.The 68-bed field hospital in the park's East Meadow along the Upper East Side is designed as a respiratory care unit.Samaritan's Purse, a Christian humanitarian aid organization, set up the tents in cooperation with FEMA, state officials and local hospital authorities, the organization said.Mayor Bill de Blasio said the tent hospital is expected to be operational by Tuesday.Though small, the field hospital is an example of how New York is using every possible method to expand its capacity to treat coronavirus patients.The Army Corps of Engineers transformed Manhattan's Javits Convention Center into a makeshift 1,000-bed field hospital, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo set a goal of building a 1,000-plus patient temporary hospital in each New York City borough as well as in Westchester, Rockland, Nassau and Suffolk counties.U.S. Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort also docked in New York City harbor Monday to aid hospitals overwhelmed treating patients with coronavirus.Patients who don't have the virus will be treated on the ship.“The Comfort brings 1,000 much-needed hospital beds & 1,200 personnel to New York,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo tweeted Monday morning.More than 1,000 people have died of coronavirus in New York, the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, as of Monday morning, a state official told CNN.And Cuomo has warned that the numbers of coronavirus patients, hospitalizations and deaths will continue to rise until they reach an expected peak in two to three weeks.Cuomo's call for "all hands on deck" in the state has also turned out more medical staff and a surge in needed medical supplies.The city has received all of the 2,500 ventilators promised by the federal government. They are distributing the ventilators along with personal protective equipment including 8,918,000 face masks, 179,328 face shields, 1,570,300 surgical gloves and 476,565 N95 masks."There is not enough of anything," an attending physician in the anesthesiology department of a Long Island hospital told CNN. "There are just so many patients who are so sick it seems impossible to keep up with the demand."For medical professionals on the front lines, many of whom are reusing single-use equipment, the supplies are the best line of defense against contracting the virus themselves, spreading it to patients and being unable to continue providing care.Staff moved and a hospital in Central ParkCuomo has emphasized a two-pronged solution to the coronavirus outbreak: increase the ability to care for those who get sick and cut down on the spread of new cases.NYC's Emergency Rooms are serving twice as many patients as usual and their ICUs are three times as large as usual, Dr. Mitchell Katz, CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals said Sunday.In response, 500 contract nurses were added to the NYC Health + Hospitals system this week and another 500 are expected next week, Mayor de Blasio said Sunday.And Queen's Elmhurst Hospital, which de Blasio said is among the hardest hit in the city, has received 169 clinicians to help in its fight against the virus. The city will continue to move personnel to help every hospital that needs it during this pandemic, de Blasio said.At Brookdale University Hospital Medical Center, where CNN gained access Sunday, the ICU was working at capacity, patient beds lined the hallways of the emergency department and the morgue was full."I can say that every corner every part of the hallway, every room, every space has been filled up to capacity with our patients," Dr. Arabia Mollette said.

A grassy meadow in New York's Central Park normally occupied by sunbathers and picnickers is now an emergency field hospital as officials scramble to support a hospital system getting overwhelmed by coronavirus.

The 68-bed field hospital in the park's East Meadow along the Upper East Side is designed as a respiratory care unit.

Advertisement

Samaritan's Purse, a Christian humanitarian aid organization, set up the tents in cooperation with FEMA, state officials and local hospital authorities, the organization said.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said the tent hospital is expected to be operational by Tuesday.

Though small, the field hospital is an example of how New York is using every possible method to expand its capacity to treat coronavirus patients.

KENA BETANCUR / AFP via Getty Images

Workers set up a field hospital in front of Mount Sinai West Hospital inside Central Park on March 29, 2020 in New York City.

The Army Corps of Engineers transformed Manhattan's Javits Convention Center into a makeshift 1,000-bed field hospital, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo set a goal of building a 1,000-plus patient temporary hospital in each New York City borough as well as in Westchester, Rockland, Nassau and Suffolk counties.

U.S. Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort also docked in New York City harbor Monday to aid hospitals overwhelmed treating patients with coronavirus.

More than 1,000 people have died of coronavirus in New York, the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, as of Monday morning, a state official told CNN.

And Cuomo has warned that the numbers of coronavirus patients, hospitalizations and deaths will continue to rise until they reach an expected peak in two to three weeks.

Cuomo's call for "all hands on deck" in the state has also turned out more medical staff and a surge in needed medical supplies.

The city has received all of the 2,500 ventilators promised by the federal government. They are distributing the ventilators along with personal protective equipment including 8,918,000 face masks, 179,328 face shields, 1,570,300 surgical gloves and 476,565 N95 masks.

"There is not enough of anything," an attending physician in the anesthesiology department of a Long Island hospital told CNN. "There are just so many patients who are so sick it seems impossible to keep up with the demand."

For medical professionals on the front lines, many of whom are reusing single-use equipment, the supplies are the best line of defense against contracting the virus themselves, spreading it to patients and being unable to continue providing care.

Staff moved and a hospital in Central Park

Cuomo has emphasized a two-pronged solution to the coronavirus outbreak: increase the ability to care for those who get sick and cut down on the spread of new cases.

NYC's Emergency Rooms are serving twice as many patients as usual and their ICUs are three times as large as usual, Dr. Mitchell Katz, CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals said Sunday.

In response, 500 contract nurses were added to the NYC Health + Hospitals system this week and another 500 are expected next week, Mayor de Blasio said Sunday.

And Queen's Elmhurst Hospital, which de Blasio said is among the hardest hit in the city, has received 169 clinicians to help in its fight against the virus. The city will continue to move personnel to help every hospital that needs it during this pandemic, de Blasio said.

At Brookdale University Hospital Medical Center, where CNN gained access Sunday, the ICU was working at capacity, patient beds lined the hallways of the emergency department and the morgue was full.

"I can say that every corner every part of the hallway, every room, every space has been filled up to capacity with our patients," Dr. Arabia Mollette said.